Details – Page 4 – tim dobbs photography

Ricoh XRX comes home…………..

Years ago after my 1st couple of cheaper slr’s I was lucky enough to have been given some Pentax mx and a few cracking lenses.

After using the Pentax mx for a while I decided to upgrade but instead of getting another Pentax the new camera out at the time was the Ricoh XRX which was all singing and dancing and also had the Pentax K mount so I didn’t have to change my lenses.Last week I came across one on ebay with the starting price of 99p so as I have still got a few Pentax k mount lenses I decided to bid and see how it went.

To my amazement I was the only bidder and got it for the starting price (postage was £6 though).

Eager to be reunited with an old friend I loaded it up with some Fuji Superia 400 and using the 50mm f1.7 and 70-210 f4 went for a walk.

I was really nice to use and to be honest all the modes the camera possessd were really not needed as I have always shot Aperture Priority or Manual.

The lenses performed really well and as my C-41 chemicals were shot I tempted fate and took the film to Tescos but for a change the negs were pretty good no scratches for a change (mind you it was not the Bridgend store it was the Talbot Green one).

I am not sure how often I will be using this camera but it is really nice to have one again after all these years.

Click on an image to view larger…………

Thanks for looking 🙂

A new lease of life………..

Since buying my Fuji X10 as my walk about digital camera I was going to sell my Olympus EPL-1 as I didn’t think I would use it anymore but after reading on the internet that you can get micro 4/3 lens adapters that allow you to use all manner of older lenses depending on which adapter you purchase.

As I have got back into film photography and even though I shoot Nikon primarily and have quite a big collection of lenses I also have a few Canon FD mount lenses and decided to buy a Canon adaptor just to try it out for myself.

The adaptor just cost £10 on eBay and I didn’t really expect much from it when it arrived.

After fitting the mount to the camera I attached my 28mm f2.8 which equated to approximately 56mm in 35mm format and played about for a while.

The lens metered automatically but obviously it was manual focus which on the EPL-1 was very easy to use as you can press the magnify button and get a live view close up of your subject for accurate focussing.

Shooting at f2.8 was a utter joy and the close focus was great with the 28mm, stopped down to f4.0 and over and it was sharp as a tack over all the frame.This has given my Olympus a new lease of life and I will not be selling it in the near future.

I would recommend anyone using a micro 4/3 camera to have a look at one of these adapters especially a Canon FD mount as these prime lenses are going for a song and are very good quality.

Thanks for looking…………..

Mamiya 645 as my new walk about camera……….?

Loaded up the Mamiya 645 with some Ilford Delta 400 yesterday and decided to do a spot of Landscape photography with the intention of some nice shallow DOF shots as well as the traditional views.

After the first mile and a half I began to realise that the Mamiya is not a walk around camera its built like a tank and weighs like one too.

Nevertheless I was determined to get some shots and to try out the new B&W developer I recently bought …. Ilfotec DD-X.

The results from the camera and film/dev combination were lovely, I shot most of the closeup detail at f2.8 – f4 and stopped down to f11 for the views.

The detail captured was great all these shots had minor touchup in Photoshop mainly dust and a few hairs and a little curves adjustments.

I so love this camera, I bought it with the sole intention of portrait work but the stunning negatives I am getting from it means I am going to try to use it as an allround camera……

I think I may try a bit of street photography next …. 🙂

Please click on an image to view larger ……..

Learning to use my Film Scanner………

Over the last few months I have really got hooked on shooting film again even more so since getting a film scanner and developing at home too.

The scanner an Epson v330 Photo performs great or so I thought with the Epson software that came bundled with it.

I have been scanning at nearly all of the default settings then opening the scan in Aperture or Photoshop and tweaking slightly and removing dust and hairs.

The resultant photos have been fine but the other day I shot a few rolls of expired film and when scanning them noticed that nearly half of each roll were over-exposed (or so I thought) which I attempted to get back using Camera Raw and I was pretty happy not realising that the problem was with the scanning software.

After reading up on the internet I found that the auto exposure that the scanner software was using was blowing out the highlights, I re-scanned a neg that was blown out and used the histogram in the program to correct the exposure before scanning.

I have included here 2 photos like a before and after to show the difference, I am going to go back through my negs and re-scan them as the difference in quality is great.

Thanks for looking… Please click on photos for the comparison

Not the usual Shots……..

We have visited the Lightboat in Cardiff bay on many occasions and it has featured in many of my photographs in and around the bay so this time I decided to have a different outlook and just shoot details and abstracts instead of the normal everyday photos.

The lightship Helwick LV14 was built and commissioned by Trinity House in 1953. It was brought to Cardiff Bay in 1993 and restored to create a floating Christian Centre.

A link to the wesite is here http://www.lightship2000.co.uk/ it’s well worth a visit if you are in the Bay, they do a very good pot of Tea and their Welshcakes are good too!

All the shots were taken with my D300s and Sigma 30mm f1.4

Click on images to see much larger……….